


Joy

by Mochapup12



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Character studies, everyone is sad but it's ok bc they're still happy too, i don't actually know what this is or why i wrote it, introspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-14 12:55:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16913232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mochapup12/pseuds/Mochapup12
Summary: Joy can be chosen, can be found, can be made. No matter what.A look at Taako, Merle, and Magnus, and all the ways that they find joy.





	Joy

**Author's Note:**

> i would apologize for this but i don't actually know what it is??? it came from me watching animatics until i cried at like 3am and was overcome with inspiration (except that i probably just needed to go to bed.) it's not betad and was barely proofread and felt a lot more coherent and better-planned in my head, but i hope it's still evocative on some level and that you enjoy it! as always, feel free to yell at me on tumblr @ story-and-song.

_ What brings me joy is… life. I think you can find joy anywhere in life. I think it’s a conscious choice. I think you - you choose joy, in life… But whatever I do, I find joy in it. Because at the end of the day, that’s all you got, is looking back on the joy you had and the joy you found and the joy you gave other people. _

 

_ And I’ll tell you what, if we ever meet each other somewhere in infinity, you can apologize to me and tell me you were wrong. _

 

Joy is not always easy.  Light and happiness and love and sheer, unadulterated joy seem to dance just out of reach sometimes, tantalizingly close but never enough.  Darkness fills in the gaps that they leave, fear and sorrow and hatred and arrogance. It crawls into the spaces that should belong to joy, if you let it.

 

But this is not inevitable or right.  There is always a choice to be made. It may seem like the most difficult choice in the world, where the worse option is right in front of you and the other sits on the peak of a mountain high above - it may not even feel like a choice.  But it always, always is. Joy can be chosen, can be found, can be made. No matter what.

 

Wagon wheels creak as a stagecoach races away from a town choking on poison, and its sole occupant save for the driver is curled in on himself, mumbling lists of ingredients over and over because it’s all he can think to do.  Nightshade, it had to be nightshade, he whispers. My fault. He never thinks to check the cabinets, even when the bottle of arsenic inside of the one belonging to his assistant rattles with the movement of the cart. Guilt eats away at him, even while he shoves it deeper and deeper in a desperate attempt not to feel.

 

It’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to him.

 

Except that it isn’t.

 

Years later, unwelcome tears prick at the corners of his eyes and his hands shake as he levels his umbrella at the lonely journal keeper. He’s reeling from the sudden influx of memories.  He’s lost  _ so much. _

 

“You fucking took everything from me,” he spits, venom in his voice.  Everything that he’d ever had, had ever held dear, torn away from him. His memories, his life, his choices… his sister. Lup.  How could he have forgotten? He trembles with fury, gritting his teeth against the unfairness of it all. What little he’d found that made life worth living, gone.  He’d been thrown out into a cruel, unforgiving world, alone for the first time in his life, and things had only gotten worse from there.

 

The anger and sorrow and guilt -  _ not your fault, not your fault, but you’ll never forget the faces of those people, all those people, they were so happy and then they were dead _ \- surge through his veins until he feels hollow, like they’ve left no room for anything else.

 

But they have. Just a few hours later, he stands on the deck of their ship one last time, side by side with the family he’d forgotten he had and found again anyway.  He is still angry - of course he is, how could he not be? But his sister is back, his family is back, they’re finally doing what they should have done a century ago. He takes a deep breath, stares defiantly out at the shadows surrounding them, and thinks of the good times.

 

Stepping onto the Starblaster for the first time. Dinners cooked by two sets of hands in its tiny kitchen, always far too much food for seven people. Surfing during that one glorious cycle when they’d managed to take a break. Laughter ringing across the deck, through the halls, and in the streets and forests and fields of every new world they found. Exploring, scavenging, Lup always by his side. A mischievous smile, a sideways glance, a wordless language that only they spoke and working constantly in tandem. The best day ever.

 

And then, the new ones. Teaching Angus. Saving a city from a runaway train. Winning the race in Goldcliff, even if he might not have technically followed the rules. Pulling Magnus back from the brink of the Astral Plane. The rush of pride every time Ren recognized him. His first date with Kravitz. Every victory, every triumph, every moment of joy.

 

That is what he fights for.

 

_ Taako’s good out here. _

 

_ I’m not going fucking anywhere. _

 

A man falls to his knees as the ashes of his life smolder around him, hands stained grey with soot and guilt rising in the back of his throat.  He’s too late, too late, and everything is gone. The worst part is the silence. No familiar voices, not even crying out for help. There’s nothing left.

 

Deep, ragged breaths tear free of his chest as he watches the smoke billow from the wreckage of his home through a blur of tears.  He stumbles to his feet, staggers closer, begins to dig even as the heat blisters his skin. Charred wood crumbles at his touch. When he pulls the half-scorched carving of a small duck from the embers, it’s all he can do not to collapse.

 

Eventually, he finds his prize.  A small golden ring, miraculously undamaged, gleams in the last of the firelight as he picks it up and curls his fingers around it like it’s a lifeline.  Half-formed memories flicker through his mind. The edge of a soft smile, warm eyes crinkled at the edges with laughter, strong hands that could wield a sword as well as any tool.  Revolution, freedom, love. Julia.

 

Gone.

 

He carries that pain for the rest of his life, but it becomes his energy, his driving force; not the anger or the guilt, but the thought of her.  She would want better for him. So he tries to be better, to do better, to be an unshakeable foundation of goodness and light even if it kills him.  He misses her so much that it takes his breath away, but he knows he can’t have her back. Not yet. It’s all he can do to live on for her, to pack so much adventure into one lifespan that by the time he sees her again he’ll have enough stories to span decades.

 

He’s surprised by how easy it is to turn down the offer to bring her back.  Knowing how she would hate the consequences helps.

 

Then, when he finally remembers - fully this time, no more static, no more missing pieces - all the blank spots on the list of things that he fights for are filled in.  Julia remains the first. But just below her is Fisher, Johann, the bureau, the rest of the crew, their homeland and all the other worlds that they’ve watched die, all the wrongs that he has to make right simply because he knows he can.  He’s seen so many terrible things, lost so much, but it doesn’t break him.

 

It makes him stronger.

 

After everything, he still has his odd little ragtag family.  They stand together against the storm, just as they always have.  And Magnus remembers more than the destruction.

 

He remembers a glorious symphony, projected for all the world to hear from their first day in the Legato Conservatory.  He remembers the fear of placing his own offering, a small and intricately carved wooden duck, and the relief and joy when it was accepted.  He remembers the first time he met Fisher. He remembers training with the Power Bear, and coaching his team to victory, and growing stronger over their century-long voyage.  And he remembers all the times that they won.

 

Of course he still remembers Raven’s Roost too, Steven and Julia and all of the people that had fought a revolution by his side.  It had been a place that he’d thought he could spend the rest of his life. A cozy house, polished wooden carvings smooth beneath his hands, and the love he and his wife shared filling every room with light and joy; that was all he’d wanted.

 

Maybe he can’t have that, but he still has love to give.  And that will have to be enough.

 

Magnus rushes in, and brings joy with him.

 

_ I tried to make you proud. _

  
  


The night air clings cold and quiet as as a cloaked figure walks purposefully down a hard-packed dirt road, the lights of his home fading into the distance along with the sound of waves.  His heart is heavy, no matter how many times he tells himself that it’s not. He doesn’t look back, but it’s the hardest thing he’s ever done. They’re better off without me, he mumbles to himself. I never loved her anyway.  She’ll take better care of them than I ever could.

 

He almost manages to convince himself.

 

It’s years before he tries to contact his children again.  He misses them, hates that he left them behind, but every time he tries to write, guilt and doubt stay his hand.  Unfinished letters begin to pile up. He still tells himself that it’s better this way. Saying it doesn’t make it true, but it makes him feel just a bit better for a while - until later, when the built-up lies make it worse.

 

Throwing himself into a life of adventure helps for a time.  He travels, fights, laughs and swaps stories and never talks about his family with group after nameless group of adventurers. Time passes.  The fulfillment he’s looking for never comes. Something is missing, and he assumes that it’s the family he left behind. He’s tired of feeling lost.

 

He finally sends a letter.  Their first meeting is awkward, strange, his daughter hanging back with distrust in her eyes and a constant, protective hand on her brother’s shoulder.  He wishes he’d brought them gifts of some kind, then realizes that he has no idea what they would even want. It ends with a strained goodbye, a promise to see them again soon, and a look that calls him a liar more clearly than if she’d screamed it.

 

But he decides that he’s never going to give her a reason to look at him like that again.  He meant it, he realizes; he’s going to keep trying. It might be difficult, but it will be worth it.  He visits them in between journeys, starts bringing them back trinkets from wherever he goes. Perhaps it isn’t enough to make up for leaving them in the first place, but it’s a start.  At least he’s here now, as much as he can be.

 

He still feels strangely lonely.  It doesn’t make sense until he’s standing on the moon base as the Hunger descends and memories flood his mind.

 

He remembers what he’d lost, and everything seems to fall into place.  His family, their journey, everything that they’ve been through together.  He remembers the mistakes he’s made, over a century’s worth of them, and he knows that walking away was not the first thing he did wrong.  But he tries again anyway. Always. No matter what, he always tries again, tries to fix his mistakes and make the world a little better.

 

He always finds the spark of joy in everything, even when it’s nothing more than the tiniest flicker of hope for a silver lining amidst a sea of black clouds.

 

That is who he is, and that is how he’s come so far.

And he is more than his mistakes.  He is the one who walked away, but is also the one who stayed to give a church full of frightened citizens comfort as their world fell to pieces around them.  He is the one who pulled his friend’s souls back from the brink of the astral plane. He is the one who stared down an entity hell-bent on destroying existence and challenged him to a game of chess.  He is the one who heals, who helps, who listens, and above all, who tries.

 

And he is happy.

 

_ Will you sit with me? Just… Just for a moment? _

 

_ You got it, buddy. _

 

He sits on a beach that doesn’t exist next to a dying friend.  It feels inevitable, things ending this way. The distant sunset paints the whole world gold as they watch in silence, and it’s bittersweet and beautiful and he knows that he was right, but John is dying; he’s not going to force an apology out of a man that already knows that he was wrong.  They say nothing, but they both understand. This is a silent concession. The universe is worth more than its mistakes, and he can almost feel a shift in John’s presence, shadows fading under the brilliant light of something as simple and mundane as a sunset. He feels joy, small and uncertain but still true, soften the lines on John’s face with an air of finality.  There’s still no apology, but he doesn’t mind.

 

His greatest enemy and strangest friend vanishes with the sun, and Merle is left alone with an odd combination of grief and contentment as the tide goes out.

 

After everything, they all choose joy.


End file.
